Tag Archives: Myanmar

Let’s suppose you’re a functionary working for a tinpot dictatorship, and you hear tell of a website called “DownWithTyranny.” Do you:
(a) E-mail your friends saying, “Hmm, this sounds way cool”?
(b) Read some back posts, adding snarky comments reflecting the pro-tyrannical point of view?
(c) Block the shit out of the damn thing?

Prominent human rights groups are urging the UN Security Council to impose an arms embargo on Burma in response to its military government’s continuing recruitment of child soldiers.
“Burma’s army has recruited thousands of children to fill its ranks,” said Jo Becker of the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) group. “The Security Council needs to show Burma’s generals that they cannot get away with such horrendous practices.”
The call for sanctions came as members of the Council’s working group on children and armed conflict met in New York Thursday to consider a new report accusing the Burmese regime of “grave violations” against children, including patterns of underage military recruitment.

Bangkok – Two months after Myanmar’s brutal crackdown on peaceful protests in Yangon led by Buddhist monks, the former capital is noticeably short of monks, a senior US diplomat said Friday.
‘Prior to September, almost any place you looked in Rangoon (Yangon) there were 25 to 50 monks, they were everywhere, but now you only see one or two,’ said Shari Villarosa, charge d’affaires of the US embassy in Myanmar, also known as Burma.

The situation in Burma is tragic and the result of decades of horrific military rule that has reduced one of the most beautiful places on earth to a tragic ruin where monks in robes flee from soldiers with Chinese-made automatic weapons.
One of the tragedies of the situation is despite the efforts of groups who have been trying to expose the situation on the ground in Burma. Groups like WITNESS and US Campaign For Burma have been fighting against the apathy that is our current corporate media culture.
If Britney was driving a young monk without a seatbelt, there would be a chance to get some coverage but sadly, young monks are smarter than that.
If Anna Nicole Smith’s baby’s father was one of the generals, well, they would be building permanent tv stations.

If you are following the situation in Burma/Myanmar, go see the stories at or, most important, leave a story at the brand-new Burma Newsladder
Try the What’s Up and What’s New tabs.
The newsladder is a new project that I am involved in.